The Rip Curl story, from shaping boards to a global surf brand
Although they no longer shape boards, Rip Curl originally began their company making surfboards. During the late 1960s, a growing movement away from the traditional longboards that were surfed around the globe, and the beginnings of the shortboard were becoming popular. One of the few shortboards being made at the time was the Bob McTavish-shaped “Fantastic Plastic Machine,” a highly sought-after yet hard-to-acquire shape. Doug “Claw” Warbrick was one of the lucky people to have one of these boards and was obviously aware that the demand for these was high; he decided to make his own version, alongside his friend, Brian “Sing Ding” Singer. When coming up with a name for their new board brand, Claw recounted the words written on his personal board, written by his friend Simon Buttonshaw, stating: “Rip Curl Hot Dog”, a string of words that Claw was a massive fan of. After much discussion, in April 1969, the name Rip Curl was settled on.
By December 1969, Alan Green briefly joined the ranks and began their journey into making high-quality, surf-focused wetsuits, using his experience of wetsuit manufacturing whilst working for “Australian Divers”. After five months of refining Rip Curl’s wetsuit manufacturing process, Alan parted ways from Rip Curl to start his own brand, Quiksilver. This then left ‘Claw’ and ‘Sing Ding’ as equal partners once again, and off the back of their success from both their boards and early wetsuit designs, they moved all wetsuit production into an adjoining building from The Old Bakery, their board shaping facility. With these early foundations made, Rip Curl became, and still is, one of the most loved and sought-after surf brands in the world.
When a brand like Rip Curl becomes as synonymous with a lifestyle as surfing, apparel quickly becomes another important string to the brand's bow. Of course, there are nicely branded T-shirts, hoodies, caps, and accessories, all of which are of a great quality and design. But Rip Curl’s commitment to surfing and the culture around it is most obviously seen (apparel-wise) in their outerwear, all designed to benefit surfers around the world. With genuinely useful features such as easy-to-carry packable designs, weather-resistance, comfy materials, and, of course, warm and relaxed fleece designs, perfect for before or after a rip at your local break.